(A/N: Warning: Some spoilers for Witcher 1 if there is anyone out there who intends to play it and hasn't yet)

So, what are we on to?

I think that the next thing that we need to talk about are a Witcher's mutations.

We have discussed, in broad terms, the tools that a Witcher uses. Their weapons, their magic and their potions and elixirs. I mean, yes, we could talk about armour, horses and traps and bombs and trophy hooks and skinning knives and things that might contribute to a Witcher's state of being but I think that I would just be filling a word count there.

It's a skinning knife. Kerrass uses it to take valuable alchemical items from the bodies of the monsters that he slays. It's a skinning knife. Hunters, butchers and tanners throughout the land use knives just like it and so, no, taking it away from a Witcher doesn't make him any the less a Witcher. He would simply march to a blacksmith and and order a new Skinning knife, or use his sword, or do without for a while.

It's a skinning knife.

So, now we move on to the Witcher themselves rather than the stuff that the Witcher carries with them. It is common knowledge that a Witcher is heavily mutated. We know this because our fathers taught us this. It's common knowledge on just about every street corner. You mention the word “Witcher” to just about any uneducated or ignorant (there is a difference) person on the street and normally the first words that come out of their lips are some kind of variety on “Filthy mutant.” There are often other words mixed in there at various stages but I shall leave those words and terms to your imagination.

But what does this mean? What does it mean to be a mutant? How are they mutated and how does that work within the format of the rest of their lives.

As some of you may remember, early on in our travels together, I asked Kerrass this question and I remember his response. I asked him “What's it like being a mutant?” and he responded promptly. Quickly enough that I strongly suspected that this was a question that he was asked on regular basis. Regularly enough that he had a quick, kind of funny response to the question.

“I dunno,” he said. “What's it like being human?”

A quick response. A glib response but also, rather a true one. It has been said by people much wiser than me that the there is often truth in jest and I suspect that there is truth here as well.

What I took this to mean was that Kerrass is so used to his.....being that he no longer thinks of it as being unusual. He doesn't question it any more and as such, he can no longer distinguish from being anything else. He is simply a Witcher. Calling him a mutant is a little bit misleading in fact. Mutation describes the process that turned him into a Witcher but calling him a mutant suggests that he is something else. Something different. In all reality, he is not. He is a Witcher. Not a mutated one.

I suspect that this distinction would be more usual back when there were more than a score of Witchers on the road.

They are not mutants. They are Witchers and for me that is a distinction that needs to be made.

So to become a Witcher you need to be mutated from humanity.

I suppose that I must admit that a Witcher is a mutated human. But if we're going to go down that route then we need to use more.....accurate terminology.

These are the mutations that I know about.

The most obvious one is the cat's eyes that they are given. Some people describe them as being snake's eyes and although some Witchers might not be too offended by that, I always find that term a little bit insulting.

The purpose of the Cat's eyes is so that the Witcher can adjust the amount of light that the eye takes in at will but also so that they can see in even the darkest of caves or monster lairs. Apparently, this mutation was derived from the cat's (as in the animal) natural ability to do this when the mutation was initially designed,

which is why the eyes look like they do.

After that Witchers have had their metabolism adjusted. What does this mean? In practical terms not a lot. It means that Witchers heal that little bit faster than humans do. That their bones are that little bit harder and that their heads are a little bit more able to withstand concussion. This also helps with the imbibing of the potions and the elixirs that Witchers use all the time, as well as helping to make the Witcher's be immune to poisons and various diseases.

I also know that Witchers can adjust their metabolism at will. That they can increase their heart rate and air intake as well as slowing them down to the point that they have almost stopped completely.

An early joke that Kerrass used to play on me was that he would pretend to be dead. He would be lying there, eyes open and staring at the canopy of tree branches above him, not really breathing, pale of face and cold to the touch before he would jerk into sudden movement scaring the life out of me.

Bastard.

A Witcher's sense of humour for you.

My understanding is that this was something that they aimed for both to help with the ingestion and the use of potions but also so that Witchers would be better able to sneak up on certain kinds of monsters that might be able to see body heat or heat beats or the sound of air being breathed in and out.

Then there are a series of other mutations. Things that I don't really know what they are and have relatively understanding of. I know that the nervous systems have been adjusted as well as the pulminary, pulminery, poolmin.....You know what, forget it. Some of the bodily systems have been adjusted. This is to make Witchers immune to all of the disgusting bullshit that comes out of monster's bodies. Venoms, gasses and the like, while also making them immune to the side effects of the various Witcher potions that they take on a daily basis.

This has the side effect that they have an amazing tolerance for alcohol and as such, can rarely get drunk unless they really go for it. According to Kerrass, one of the other benefits to this is that he can have sex with anyone he likes and never catch any kind of pox.

His words, not mine.

Some of these mutations mean that a Witcher's body has been adjusted in other ways as well. Ways that I sometimes find myself wondering as to whether or not the initial creators of the Witchers intended. For example, they are sterile.

I sometimes wonder if those mages that created the Witchers foresaw the possibility that the Witchers would become their own race and deliberately did this to stop them from taking over the continent as some kind of superior race. They are, after all, faster, stronger and more resilient than the average Human, Elf and dwarf. So was the sterilisation process part of that original plan? Or was it a natural by-product of the use of magic? I think it is all but impossible that we will receive answers to these questions now, but I just think that it's interesting that this come up.

We also know that, should they survive, Witcher's have vastly increased lifespans. The oldest Witchers, that I have heard of, lived somewhere in the region of a couple of hundred years but no-one has ever had the opportunity to find out exactly how long a Witcher can live because, as has been pointed out. Witchers never die in their beds, almost always in combat at the hands of some monster or another.

So what else is it about Witchers that have mutated. They are, of course, faster and stronger than the average person. They find building body mass a little easier although they prefer their musculature to be leaner rather than bulky.

Here's a thing that needs to be talked about.

The mutations may have something to do with their emotional state.

Now, I'm not entirely convinced by this as, in my opinion, Witchers have plenty of reasons to be emotionally stunted but ok, we're talking about Witcher mutations so lets talk about Witcher mutations. Witchers are traditionally seen as being less emotional than the average person on the street. It's one of the things that goes towards their negative reputation in the world. That they will kill anyone, that they will do anything without remorse to achieve their goals. That they are inhuman and cannot be trusted. That they are cold-blooded and murderous people who kill for the sport of things because it is the only way that they can feel any kind of emotion.

To be fair, most of the people that accuse them of this kind of thing are aware that this is the fault of others. That this is something that was done to the Witchers rather than a fault of the Witchers themselves.

Kerrass also takes great pains to point out that the majority of these rumours can be placed squarely on the shoulders of his own Witcher school. That the Cats were the ones that go insane and kill people for fun. That it was the Cat Witchers that dealt with dwindling monster populations by expanding the definition of “monster” to include humans and non-humans and that it was the Cat's that decided that “Monsterhood” was in the eye of the beholder, the beholder being whoever could pay for the death.

He admits this freely but the other argument about it being as a result of the genetic modifications that were performed on the Witchers is a valid one. I can also see the reasoning behind why someone would cause this to happen as well.

If a person is going into hellish places, the lairs of monsters or climbing up mountains to get to griffins or descending into sewers to tackled drowners and zeugls then the average person is going to take one look at that situation and declare in a loud voice that their employer can go fuck themselves before running a mile and throwing their swords in the nearest cesspit.

I mean would you?

So the Witchers were denied that choice. Their brains and their various adrenal glands and other brain chemical things were adjusted so that this wouldn't come up. If there is one thing that is discussed as a possibility as to what was done to the Witchers that makes me angry. This is that one thing.

We had no right to do that to anyone in return for our safety.

Now to be clear. There is no proof that any of the mutations have affected the Witchers in this way. None at all. There is plenty of evidence that suggests that Witchers are well able to be emotional. That they are on regular basis. Kerrass regularly cracks jokes, gets angry or sad. For my money he is in love with someone as well as going above and beyond in the name of friendship on a regular basis.

Kerrass cares. So my writing is one source as to the fact that Witchers can feel emotion. If you want another one then I refer you to the works of Dandelion the bard. And I won't analyse them any further here.

There is one other thing that I want to say about Witchers and the mutations that have happened to them and that is about what a Witcher looks like.

If you remove all of the Witcher's equipment, take the swords off their backs, the potion bottles from their belts and the armour off their backs. If you hide the medallion somewhere and prevent them from wearing any of their trophy straps or hooks, then the only reason, the only reason that you would be able to tell them apart from the man sat next to them is because of their eyes. If Witchers carried their swords at their sides, wore their medallions under their shirts and wore those glasses with darkened lenses as is becoming a fashion in certain parts of Oxenfurt and Novigrad, then you wouldn't be able to tell who they were.

They are declaring themselves to you. Openly.

Why?

I suspect it's part of the process of advertising their services. The side effect though would be that if they took off all of those acoutremants then they would, essentially be in disguise.

Why do I make this point?

It is sometimes fashionable to decry Witchers as the unclean abominations that people like Radovid and the former head of the Church of the Holy Flame like to term them as. But other than some, beneath the skin adjustments, there is absolutely nothing about them that would tell them apart from being human.

The Witcher you're thinking about is Geralt of Rivia who was subjected to extra mutations and tests which ended up giving him a minor case of albinism with his white hair and slightly paler skin.

“But Freddie. Witchers are always so scarred.”

“And after three intercontinental wars, you show me a swordsman or a soldier that doesn't have multiple scars and I'll show you a braggart who didn't actually end up facing the enemy.”

But I digress.

So, then we come to the big question. The reason that I'm here talking about this. If a man is not mutated in these ways, then is he a Witcher?

Or,

Are these mutations absolutely necessary for a person to be a Witcher?

I'm afraid that the answer is the Professor's answer. One of those annoying answers that is designed to make you think that little bit further.

The answer is “Yes and No.”

The reason for that is that the term “Witcher” can actually be broken down into three separate uses. You can be a Witcher, the racial form of the term. Or you can be a Witcher, the type of profession that they follow in order to put food on the table and a roof over their heads.. You could even argue, as Kerrass has in the past, that if you perform an act of monster slaying then you are a Witcher. Even if only in that moment.

So what is a Witcher? I have asked this question in these pages many times. Is a Witcher the race, the profession or the act?

I suspect that the truth actually lies somewhere in the middle of all three answers.

You cannot be a racial Witcher without having been mutated into a Witcher.

However you can be a Witcher without having been mutated.

Let me tell you of a man called Leo.

Leo was a war orphan of the second Nilfgaardian war. The Elder Wolf Witcher Vesemir found him wandering the highways and byways of the Northern continent a little after that conflict finished at the Miracle of Brenna.

You have to understand that I'm getting this story several times removed so please bear with me.

Vesemir found him and after spending a bit of time discovering that there was absolutely no-one around that could possibly take the child in he decided to take the child home with him.

Back to Kaer Morhen.

Unfortunately for Leo, or fortunately depending on how you look at things. The Wolves don't really know how to raise a child other than to train them to become Witchers. We also know this from the childhood of the Empress according to the tales of Dandelion the bard (as well as a couple of comments from the Empress herself and evidenced by her astonishing skill with a blade). From all accounts, Leo did fairly well, as far as I can tell, he is described as a natural swordsman and athlete. He was able to perform the signs (until his hand got broken to make the necessary hand twisting impossible) and the other Witchers absolutely intended for him to eventually set out on the path in the long run. Maybe after a Trial of the mountain.

To those people paying attention, he had all but passed the trial of Choice. He had taken the herbs and the mushrooms that are part of the choice although this was, apparently, done to a lesser extent than would normally be pursued.

But there was no way for him to be properly mutated. He would never have the cat's eyes of a Witcher, nor would he be immune to the toxins and the Witcher potions. He was just going to be a skilled swordsman that knew about monsters and how to fight them.

The other Witchers thought of him as one of their own despite not being a “real” Witcher.

Even Lambert, that famously offensive Wolven Witcher told me that “he was a good kid,” before telling me to fuck off, as was his wont.

Unfortunately for him and for the world, Leo was killed in a raid on Kaer Morhen by a group of Criminals at the behest of Jacques de Aldersbourg before his rebellion in Temeria.

So Leo was both, not a Witcher while also being a Witcher and who knows what he might have become if history had taken a different turn.

So now it comes time to render a verdict about this. As with all of these kinds of questions which get that very particular “Yes and no” answer then we all have to take a stand and declare where we stand.

I don't think that You need to be mutated to be a Witcher. Or, in other words if you prefer, Mutations are not essential to being a Witcher. In my opinion, if you are a person travelling the highways and byways of the Continent by yourself and you make your living by slaying monsters, then you are a Witcher. Whether you are mutated or not.

I am not just saying this so that I have an excuse to continue with this sequence of small essays.

-

Think about your arms for a moment. Thank about what they do, what task they perform when you're just walking from A to B. When you're not using them for anything else. When your hands are just swinging by your sides, not holding anything, or securing a pack or reaching out for something.

What are they for?

I learned that day as Kerrass and I left the cave with as much grace and dignity as we could. You use them to balance yourself. I know that because Kerrass was staggering all over the place. He was in agony, yes, multiple fractures of bones will do that to you, but as well as that he had lost his sense of balance. His equilibrium, so much so that I had to support him and help him to a nearby patch of trees.

It was mid-morning and if I didn't have anything else on my mind I would have had to admit that it was quite a nice morning. The sun was out, the sky was clear and the trees were green.

I didn't notice at the time but Kerrass tells me that there were absolutely no signs of animal life so I can't tell you that the birds were singing in the trees. They weren't. Either the smell or the general feeling that came from the cave mouth was too much for nature to absorb as a whole.

The cave mouth was actually rather small so that we had to go single file including an excruciating period where I had to climb over a set of rocks before helping Kerrass to get over the same rocks by virtue of tugging him over by his armpits while he did his best to keep his arms crossed over his chest, before spinning him round so that he could come to his feet and we could get out to the open air. We looked around and without speaking, we ran to the treeline.

I don't think that I even noticed that there was a clearing there and that the ground was dead. All I could think of was how bright the sun was in the sky and about how I had to fight the urge to shield my eyes and that the air smelled oh so very sweet.

We got to the trees and there was no way I could hide it any longer. The rage and anger that had kept me going throughout our imprisonment was draining out of me with every step and now it was being replaced with fear and that fear was overwhelming.

I would like to think that the sudden shock of going into open air as well as sudden exertion after enormous physical and mental stimulus also had an effect on me but the simple truth of the matter is that I could feel it welling up inside me until I had to lean on a tree and vomit.

The enormity of what we had to do was suddenly so massive that it loomed in my mind like a giant, or a golem that there was no getting around. The gargoyle hiding the cave entrance. I tried reaching for the anger again in an attempt to force those feelings down and to recover my poise while at the same time feeling as though I was doing myself a disservice for using that emotion as a tool like that.

All I can say is that I felt god-damned awful. I wanted to vomit, I could taste acid at the back of my throat, my head was pounding and my hands were shaking.

Flame dammit, poor Taylor. Poor Kerrass and poor fucking me.

As it turned out, Kerrass had been calling my name for a bit. He claimed that he hadn't been doing it for too long but there's honestly no way of telling.

I turned to him and found myself staring into his eyes.

“You should consider leaving me Freddie.” He said. It was like a shock of cold water being thrown into my face and just like that. The anger was back, warm and comforting. To this day I don't know whether or not Kerrass was saying this genuinely or whether or not he was manipulating me, saying what I needed to hear in order to keep going.

“Fuck off.” I told him walking over to where I had dumped the packs. I took a swallow of the water to clean my mouth out. Spat it out before taking another large swallow to clear the back of my throat. “Not a day ago,” I began as I looked around for stout lengths of wood that would stand up to a beating. “You were yelling at me for my desire to throw myself on my sword so you don't get off the hook that easily.” I selected a couple that looked to be about the right length and dumped them next to where Kerrass was leaning against a fallen log.

“So the first thing we're going to do,” I said after staring at him for a moment, he was expressionless. “Is to see how well my medicine training holds up. Let's take a look at the damage.”

Kerrass has several belts and straps that he has round himself. Some for potions, some for weapons, one for monster trophies and his alchemy kit. Many of these were empty at the moment so I commandeered a couple of them and laid them on the log net to him. I selected one narrow one and folded it up a couple of times.

“Now,” I began as I worked. “I don't know what it's like for you poxy mutants when you get hurt, but for us low life regular filthy humans.... It fucking hurts when we get our bones set so, open wide.”

He did as he was told and I jammed the folded belt between his teeth.

“Now feel free to scream your bloody face off while I have a look.”

I stole one of his smaller daggers and cut his sleeves away. On balance, in my time with Kerrass, I've seen worse. Mostly done to other people but still.

“How is it?” He mumbled round the belt.

“It's fucking awful.” I told him. “I honestly can't understand how your limbs are still attached.”

“Freddie,” His tone was a warning one. I should also specify that he was still talking around the belt but I've heard Kerrass say that word in that particular tone of voice so many times that I knew what he was saying.

“What do you want me to say Kerrass? Your Fore-arms are broken, both bones, in multiple places and in multiple ways. That's what you get when you're stupid enough to get hit by a warhammer.”

He snarled something past his improvised Gag.

“Yeah?” I said. “And your mother too. Just count yourself lucky that no bones have broken through the skin and that I don't know how to amputate as that is almost certainly the correct thing to do with injuries like this.”

I did the things that you do when you're triaging someone with those kinds of breaks. Which is not a lot really. I straightened the limb and strapped several bandages to it and hung them in a sling across his chest. All the while trading banter about how he was probably going to get gangrene and die horribly.

“Your bedside manner is terrible.” He told me when we finally took the gag out.

“There was a reason why I quit medicine,” I told him.

“Fortunately,” He said climbing to his feet, hissing at the pain. “I am a Witcher, infection and the like is not going to happen to me.”

“Well bully for you.” I said with a s much Sarcasm as I could muster. “So what do we do now?”

He was taking some small steps up and down to test his balance. He was pale with pain.

“I was just going to ask you the same question.”

“What? Er....Wait What?”

Kerrass sighed. He was still getting used to his splints and slings. Wincing occasionally as each slight movement in the new bindings jarred the injury.

“Freddie, this changes things. I am injured. Badly. Even if.....and it's a big if......We manage to find the right herbs in the right order and steal some powerful alcohol in order to make a healing draught to give the injuries a boost to begin healing. Even if we manage that, I'm not going to be able to pick up a sword again for weeks. If not months. After that it's going to be months before I'm back up to full strength. Even if we survive and get magical healing to my arms. At the moment, I'm all but useless.”

“Kerrass, first of all, don't talk like that and secondly, you must have been on the run before, having to avoid people and run away from things. You're much more capable than.....”

“You're right.” Kerrass said. He seemed to be obsessively trying to test the extent of his injuries even knowing how much pain he was causing himself. “You're right, I have. I have fled the authorities multiple times and in multiple ways and in multiple countries but I have always been the scariest motherfucker there. There was never any doubt in me that if I ran and I was chased, then I could look to take down two pursuers easily. Three with some care and planning. Any more than that then I would need to isolate and engage with care but I could do it and do it easily. Now though?”

He tried to raise his arms to demonstrate and hissed with the pain. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.

“If you're going to insist on the foolishness of taking me with you then you need to be the one that calls the shots.”

“But I've never been on the run before.”

Kerrass laughed at me. There was some of his own anger in that laughter as well and if it was anyone else, I would have said that he was on the edge of hysteria.

“Freddie. You forget that I read your diaries too. You were on the run in a hallucination for weeks from all the nastiness that Jack sent after you in your dreams were you not?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “Yes, but that was, as you say, a hallucination. Far from the real thing.”

“The only difference there is the degree to which things were stacked against you. There you were against a supernatural creature that controlled your perception of reality. Here you're up against men. Powerful men with all the advantages to be sure. But still men. You just have to be cleverer than they are. You can do that though right? Be smarter than that oaf Cavill?”

I took a breath followed by another.

“I don't know Kerrass.”

Kerrass moved his shoulder. “Goddess damned son of a bitch.” He exclaimed as the pain tore through him again. “Freddie?” He asked sheepishly. “Could you wipe my forehead or something?”

The situation was suddenly so absurd that we both laughed.

I tore a small section of the blankets that we had been given and fashioned a crude bandanna around Kerrass' head in an effort to help with the problem.

“Ok,” I said after taking a bit of time to breathe in and out for a while. “Which way do we need to go in the long run?”

“I still think,” Kerrass told me, levering himself back to his feet from where he had sat back down for me to tie the bandanna. “That our best option is to head towards your brothers lands. Even though I don't trust Cavill as far as I could throw him....”

“Even now....” I teased.

“Especially now. He is right about one thing. We cannot afford to take our safety for granted. Any number of the Lords and Ladies along the way might be our enemies rather than our friends and as such we cannot hope to find friends. Our nearest allies that we know about are your brother and the others on his lands.”

I nodded. I was struggling to make my brain think. I was still tired and weak from the blood loss and having seen what I had seen. But I needed to get things working. What Kerrass had said made sense.

I was having to wrench my mind around. TO force it into a new way of thinking and into a new channel.

“Ok.” I began. “Ok. So I'm the only combatant.”

“Correct.”

“We also have to assume that no help is coming.”

“Also correct.”

“If you were chasing us? Which way would you think we would go?”

“That depends.” He said, obviously having thought about the question. The fastest route is either in a direct line, South, south East or....”

I was nodding.

“Or, we head West, flatter easier territory where we can find a road, maybe some horses and a wagon to move easily.”

I sucked my teeth.

“Either of those are the wrong answer though.” I said, more to hear myself say it aloud.

“Why?” Kerrass eyes were glittering strangely and there were points of colour on his cheeks. Immune to infection and disease he might be but he still feels pain.

“Because they are the fastest and easiest routes. If it was me chasing me,” I grinned at the stupidity of the sentence, “I would send my fastest riders in that direction in order to set up road blocks and check points. By this time tomorrow or the day after, not a cart or a horseman will pass that way without being checked thoroughly. He was right about one thing. We are not your average peasant or Elven refugee. We offer, possibly, the worst threat that faces him at the moment. He has to make sure that we are caught or he could be destroyed. IF I'm honest, I'm surprised that he even took this much risk.”

“As am I, but we can discuss his motivations and the rather obvious fact that he's crazy in the brain later. So we head in the opposite direction then. Come wide and round his blocks.”

I shook my head. “I would be ready for that too. They know that our nearest refuge is Sam, just as much as we do. If we head North, even for a little while to try and draw them off. They will know it and will just wait for us with a small party that will come after us to chivvy us along. To keep us moving and tire us out until we do something stupid, which won't be long. They will assume that we are just trying to draw them off and they would be right. They could also track us.”

“False trails in either direction?”

“Do we have time?” I countered. “We don't have that much food and both of us need what we have in the short term to keep our strength up. In his place, I would assume a double back scenario. That we would feint South before going North or that we would feint North before heading South. But also, let's be fair. He has hundreds of men. A small army. He can afford to send men both north and South following every clue and small sign of a track until we are found.”

I could feel my brain beginning to work. Oddly like those moments when I was getting back into studying after taking a break to go get drunk. Feeling as though the forge was just beginning to heat up or that the pan was just getting hot enough to boil some water.

“No, this has to be about limiting or removing his advantages.” I nodded to myself again. “We go East. Up into the mountains. Or as close as we can get anyway.”

“I'm not saying you're wrong Freddie but....”

“He has numbers and cavalry.” I said. “He also has supplies, a network of peasantry and other nobles who will inform on us for him. If we steal provisions then he will learn about it. He isn't hunting us yet but is he already getting his people to swing into action? Are horsemen already riding to the checkpoints and castles warning about two fugitives? If we go up, the land gets steeper and wilder so there aren't as many people to watch out for us. At worst there will be a few shepherds which, hopefully, will be too busy watching their sheep or too far removed from the situation to be able to get word out quickly. This will also mean that to find us, they will need to spread their men over a wider area reducing the threat of overwhelming odds.

“They will find it harder to get their horses up the slopes as well.” I went on. “Meaning that they have to walk on foot. The paths are overgrown and treacherous so they will struggle to come at us more than one or two at a time. Even if the mage tells them where we are.”

“All of these are good ideas Freddie, but I'm hardly in any shape to go mountaineering.”

“You will lead.” I told him. “You choose the paths. You choose the routes. Also....” I grinned, time to challenge him in return for his challenges of me. “I seem to recall someone once telling me that Cat Witchers have the best sense of balance in the world. Surely you're not telling me that a little thing like a pair of broken arms is going to deter a man trained by the Feline Witchers.”

“Harsh Freddie, very very harsh.” He climbed to his feet. Shaking his head at my offer of help. “Right then, load me up.”

“What?”

“You're going to need your strength to fight because that's definitely going to happen.” He said. “So I carry the stuff. Strap it onto me, back, waist, legs wherever you have to.”

I managed to keep hold of a Water skin but he insisted on keeping his weapons and just about everything else so that I was left with my spear and dagger only before he set off and I followed him.

Now.

Hunting someone or something is as much about the psychology of the situation as it is the physical act of chasing the prey down or tracking it. This was a saying of my Father that he would repeat over and over again to his children while he did his best to instil a love of the sport into his children. Ironically his biggest pupils in this regard was Emma who couldn't really take part in any of the big hunts because society told her that she wasn't allowed to. I remember very little about the lessons that I was given at the time, although some of it must have sunk in, but I remember that phrase.

Animals are all about shelter, food and water. If you know where the animal in question goes for their food and water, but also where they spend their nights, or days if it's that kind of animal, then the hunt is just about already won for you.

It's exactly the same when you are hunting monsters. And people as well as it turns out.

I will never own a hunting ground the size of that which Father cultivated and that Emma now maintains. It does not hold my interest as a pass-time and I don't think that what land we will have in Angral would be suitable. Also there's a public perception issue which would be that of a vampire and her husband chasing down quarry through the countryside. Not the best image that you want to project before the rest of the world or the people that live on your lands.

Ariadne tells me that she spends a good amount of time sitting out in the sun while wearing summer dresses to combat precisely this public perception of her and her pass-times.

My interests head in other directions apart from anything else but if I did have a hunting reserve then I would also teach this lesson as firmly as I can. I would even insist that new huntsmen should have to be chased. That the hunter should become the hunted for a while, even if it's just in the form of a game. I think that it would give so many people a different insight into how the world works and how their lives might be different if they had gone a different way.

It was easy to think of it like a game. With Lord Cavill as my opponent. I needed to get inside his head, just as he was trying to get inside mine. He was a hunter, just like Father had been and his chosen prey was humanity which made him a sick dog but I needed to get past that. I needed to think like he would.

He had studied me. We knew this. He had read my diaries and had known that my medallion was there and what it did as soon as we arrived. So he knew several things about me. He knew that I was a spear fighter but could also get up close and personal. He would know that I had a bit of a temper problem but he also knew that I was clever.

He would expect me to try and be clever. He would expect ploys and diversions and all the other tricks that a man might play if he was on the run. It would never occur to him that I would just flee in as straight a line as I could.

But he would also know that I would be aware of this.

It's a very easy trap to fall into is that kind of cyclical train of thinking. He would expect me to do one thing therefore I should do the other thing. But he knows that I know that he would expect me to do one thing and that therefore I would do the opposite so he would protect against the opposite so I should do the first thing. And round and round we go. As I say, it's an easy and dangerous trap to fall into.

But he would expect those kinds of games and he had enough men to cover all the lines that we might take. But our decision was made now and we couldn't deviate from it. “He who hesitates is lost” after all.

But we played the game for a little while, up to and including taking him at his word that he wouldn't use the mage. First we headed north for an hour or two making good time and leaving a nice open trail that any tracker, including me, could follow. Then we left a second false trail heading South and south East towards Kalayn lands. Kerrass directed me on how to hide our back trail although he commented that we were still leaving tracks that could be followed by a man with skills.

But we were injured and that couldn't be helped.

Then, shortly after midday on that first morning we came to a rocky area that we had already chosen to begin our climb up towards the mountains, as it would be harder to read our tracks there, and we began to climb.

We were actually a lot further down than I had thought we were and it was relatively easy going. Kerrass set a surprisingly quick pace to my mind. The poor fucker must have been in absolute agony as we went, climbing and scrambling over rocks. I had been right though. His sense of balance was extraordinary and he was able to make jumps, fully laden and with no arms to balance himself, that I struggled to make with just my spear.

But I would be lying if I said that it was easy going.

Kerrass went first to set the pace. I never understood those travelling parties that I have seen where the strongest traveller is the one in front. Forging ahead, leading the way so that others might follow. The more heavily laden, the physically weaker struggling to keep up. I never understood that. I assume that it must be some kind of ego or status thing but you see it over and over again. Often in couples where the man on his huge, prancing warhorse is leading the way, while the lady on the calmer, smaller horse is left to follow and do her best while also being forced to ride side-saddle. A ludicrous method of travel if ever I've seen one, but who am I to argue with years of tradition.

Before anyone starts getting smug, you also see this amongst farmers, villagers and townsfolk as well when they're marching from one place to another.

Kerrass was the weakest and he had to choose the paths that he felt that he could follow. Despite his Mutated strength and his absurd sense of balance, we often found ourselves having to go around when normally we would have gone around or through and it was frustrating. I felt as though our progress was painfully slow and I'm sure that Kerrass felt as frustrated, if not more so.

At first we tried to talk about stuff in an effort to keep our spirits up. I returned to an earlier pattern of teasing him about Princess Dorn and he did the same about the huge, impractical and elaborate plans that he was formulating with respect to my eventual Stag party.

A night that, if even half of what Kerrass was talking about comes to pass, that I am coming to dread.

“Why did you do it?” Kerrass asked me that first night. We both agreed that we would not be able to make a long term run for it if we didn't get some rest and we had settled down early so that I could have another look at his arm and make some more sturdy splints and slings for his arms in some light.

“Do what?”

“You know?”

“Kerrass, I swear to the Holy Flame that I don't know what you're talking about.”

“You cursed him. Cavill junior. Cuntface. Why did you do it?”

I leant back on my haunches from where I was crouched over his arm. “I'm not entirely sure if I'm honest. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

Kerrass was gazing at me levelly.

“It was not a magical weapon,” he told me. “Being carried by a holy man is not going to imbue it with any kind of power or condemn him to any kind of consequences because you want it to.”

“I know that.”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“You also know that curses like that have power.”

“I do,”

“And that that same power sometimes, if not regularly, bounces back on the person that made the curse in the first place.”

“Kerrass. I remember what happened in Dorn with Maleficent and the Princess. I'm not a child it just.....” I gritted my teeth as I tied one of the pieces of cloth around Kerrass' arm in an effort to maintain some kind of padding so that the splints wouldn't chafe as much. I was concerned that there would be sores and blisters that could set to bleeding and turn bad.

“I never knew Father Gardan.” I said. “I never met him in his heyday. I've heard stories, I mean all of us have. I'm even prepared to admit that the stories were church propaganda with the church of Kreve wanting to play up his holiness to give them an advantage over the increasing popularity of the Holy Flame. I know all of this....”

“Some of those stories are none too pleasant.” Kerrass commented, “especially if you're a mutant or some other kind of non-human.”

“None of this is news to me Kerrass. But....” I paused for thought. “Do you believe that the intent of an action is important?”

“Yes. I have to, otherwise it could be said that I've done some pretty awful things in my time.” He considered this for a moment, “Actually, I've done some pretty awful things anyway but if my intent was taken into account as well then that paints my actions in a more positive light.”

“I agree.” I told him. “The actions may be evil at worst, or merely wrong if you want to be generous, but does that counter any of the good that he did? Or the fact that he was doing his best to make the world a better place. Admittedly with an incorrect focus or with a moral framework that I don't agree with.”

I adjusted myself so that I was sat against a rock, legs stretched out in front of me so that I could massage my aching muscles. They were already stiffening and we would need to move tomorrow.

“I didn't know him then.” I continued. “I didn't know him and I suspect that I wouldn't have liked his “swing axe, ask questions later, if ever” attitude but when I saw him he was different. Instead of the bluff, aggressive holy man of the past, he was a tired old man. He was looking back on his life and rethinking things. I wonder if he was looking at the pagans that he was surrounded with. The villagers with their, as he said, relatively harmless little heresy that took care to take care of him and bring him food. Did he learn that lesson at the end of his life and reflect on everything else that he did?”

I switched leg.

“This axe was the axe of that man too. Just as it was the axe of the holy warrior who was smiting his enemies. It was the axe of the man of peace, the axe of a tired old man. A reminder of a who and what he used to be. It might not be a relic the likes of which the church of Kreve would want to keep on some alter in Kaedwen or some shrine that holy warriors make pilgrimages to. I even think that Gardan himself would disapprove if that was what happened to his axe. But both Gardan, and the axe itself, deserve better than for it to be handled by an ass-hole that gets off on torturing and murdering common-folk. Gardan deserves better than for his legacy to be that his axe was stolen from him and turned to evil purposes.”

Kerrass grunted at this. I set to work on his muscles. Normally he would be doing some stretching exercises himself after a day on foot such as the one we had just had.

“Magic is a thing.” I admitted. “And Kreve is a power. I follow the teachings of the Cult of Eternal Flame, but as both sides admit. Especially early on, the two were all but the same. If I cursed him so that that axe finds it's way into better hands then I'm ok with it. If there are some kind of repercussions that come back to me? Then I will take that too.”

“But were those feelings genuine Freddy? That's the difference.”

“I don't know. They felt pretty fucking genuine at the time. Taylor's blood was still flesh on the floor and the echo of your bones breaking were still in my ears. I was angry that he stood over us both with his smug self-assured attitude and him showing off the axe that he had stolen from a good man.”

“As I recall.” Kerrass had leant his head back in an effort to hide his wincing from me while I worked. “He was wearing a cowled hood. How could you tell he was smirking?”

“He just had that look about him.” I answered with a grin. “I could just tell that he was smirking. I would have punched him in the face too, but that would have ended badly for everyone.”

Kerrass considered this. “It would have felt good though right?”

“So very good.” I agreed. “I also know that I'm not even remotely magically talented. That any curse that I tried to cast or send forth is almost certainly not going to work or gain any kind of traction in this universe or the next so, in all honesty? I'm not that worried about consequences. I mean look at where we are and what shape we're in.”

“Don't say it.” Kerrass said sharply, smiling only slightly, even for him.

“Things could hardly get any worse.”

“Dammit Freddie, how many times have I told you not to say things like that. Such thoughts are like a prayer bringing doom down on the person that said them.”

“But as I say,” I told him, smiling. “I have all the magical talent of a frog. No, powers are watching me.”

“Oh, I wouldn't say that. Looking at your life over the last couple of years since you met me. I would say that something is watching us.”

I snorted with what I hoped was something approaching a kind of mirth. We sat and lay in silence for a bit of time after that.

“But I really wanted to put the shits up him. Even if it was just for a moment.” I said. “Even if it was just for a small, split second. I wanted to put a bit of doubt into that fucker's mind. If it gave him just a moment's pause, the next time he goes after a priest or an innocent. Just a moment's doubt or hesitation as he swings that axe into someone's body. If I did that, then it's totally worth every second that I spent on it.”

Kerrass nodded before we sank into silence again.

“Did you believe him?” Kerrass asked suddenly, words evaporating into the night.

“Believe who?”

“Cavill.”

“About what?”

“I don't know, anything?”

I considered, sucking on my button before rechecking some of his splints.

Quick survival tip. If you're having to run through the wilderness without easy access to food and water, select a small button from your clothes, clean it if you can and then put it into your mouth and suck. The saliva will help you keep your thirst at bay. You can also use small pebbles or small coins for this trick. It is not a long term fix but it can help take your mind off things.

“I believed some of it.” I told him as I carefully strapped his arm splints back together. “I absolutely believe that he knew what he was talking about when it came to my medallion. I don't know, there was an extra gleam of maliciousness in his eyes when he said that.”

Kerrass grunted. Probably in pain as much as he was grunting agreement.

“I uh,” Another hiss in pain. “I think he might be underestimating Sir Rickard though.” He tried.

“I agree.” I realised that I needed to be the one that carried the majority of the conversation from here. “Rickard is a sly old fox and although he might have been tricked, briefly, I don't think that he will remain tricked for too long. The danger is that he'll walk into an ambush or head in the wrong direction or something. There's what. Nine of them all together now?”

“Including Rickard, yes. I think so.”

“Don't get me wrong. In a man to man fight, I would bet on one of the Bastards versus any three of Cavill's wretches. But there were a lot of men in that cave.”

“There were.” Kerrass agreed, “But don't lose sight of the fact that Cavill will need all of those men, not just to hunt us but also to keep his presence felt all over the countryside. There are still villages that need terrorising and they will need to redouble that effort.” He winces as something fired a pain signal deep in his body. “News of our victories over the Hounds will be spreading now and people will be starting to think that they can take advantage of it. They're going to need to re-exert their authority over the masses.”

“True,” I said. “But I kind of, don't want to depend on that. I don't want to depend on Rickard finding us before some of the Hounds do, or someone else does.”

“Expect the worst, hope for the best.” Kerrass said.

“Kind of. But even hoping is dangerous. Let's face it Kerrass, we're pretty fucked.”

“But not hopeless.”

Conversation stopped for a while.

“What about the rest of it?” Kerrass asked.

“You're talking about Francesca and that religion of his?”

Kerrass said nothing.

“I don't believe in this God of theirs.” I said after along while. “I think that it's an excuse for a lot of angry, entitled Lords to indulge their darkest desires and kinks over their people. I think it was invented as an excuse by One of Cavill's ancestors, or Kalayn's ancestors or, I dunno, someone who settled in this area and started to build a cult. Because they wanted to hunt people through the forests and they wanted to do horrific things to women and children, not least because they wanted to keep the women especially from having their say and to keep themselves from realising that the women were more than just baby making machines and that they were people too.

“I think that, over the years, it grew from an excuse, into a real cult, a real religion. I don't think that this “unnameable one” is a power like how Mark described it but I wonder if these cultists constant use of the drugs plus the ritualism and the magic in the area has empowered something. I also wonder if it might get angry at being mistreated in this way.

“But no, I don't believe it. I think that years of abuse, drugs and self delusion have taken their toll on their minds. Flame only knows what Cavill's childhood must have been like.” I grinned at Kerrass. “That's an explanation, not an excuse for his behaviour.”

Kerrass' grin answered my own.

“As for Francesca?” I said after staring into space for a not small amount of time. “That was cunning of him. That was a well-thrown dart that. No, I don't believe him. If she was there, I think she would have been pulled out to torment me. I think he would have been unable to keep that a secret. I think it would have been rubbed in my face for their amusement and to make their dicks feel big.”

Kerrass was nodding.

“But,” I went on. “It was the exact right thing to say. The exact right thing to say. Because now, I can't help but hope. I don't believe him. My entire logical thought process tells me that it was a lie to goad me into action but....” I shook my head. “If it's a lie, then where do we go next. Where do we look next? And what if she really is down there. In that cavern, mine, whatever the fuck it was.”

I sighed.

“I don't believe him. But I have to hope that he was telling the truth. Does that make me sick?”

“No,” Kerrass lay down. “I suspect it makes you human.”

We didn't see any sign of the enemy for three days. But those days were long and hard. I've had harder I'm sure. Those days when racing south in an effort to see my Father before he died but even those were not quite this frustrating.

It was slow going. Painfully slow going. Mind achingly, head hurtingly slow. We inched forward day by day, hour by hour and mile by mile. We would go forward before discovering that we had to go back. But then we would discover that we couldn't go back because we'd lost the trail, or that the trail was impossible for Kerrass to return down.

The number of times we would climb up something or drop down of a ledge only to realise that we would never, ever make it back the other way became almost like a game. It was.....It was awful.

We no longer spoke to each other except in certain circumstances. We communicated in grunts and gestures. I would like to say that we were saving our breath for the march and that is certainly part of it but the other part of it was that all we did when we did talk was to depress each other. We would promise ourselves that we would get up early the following day to get a good start on things, which never happened as we were just too exhausted. We would talk about ways that we could get through to Sam, but nothing ever materialised. We were losing hope. It was a slow, inexorable process but we were beginning to resign ourselves to the inevitable capture at the hands of our enemies and it was utterly soul destroying.

A thousand times a day one or other of us would decide to just give up. That we would just sit and let the bastards overtake us. I had no doubt at all that if Kerrass had use of his arms he would have taken my dagger and used it on himself in order to stop slowing me down. But if he had use of his arms, we would be making better time and be in a stronger position.

But there was another thing.

Kerrass wasn't doing well. Not at all.

Not regarding his injury. That was as good as I could make it. It was well secured and I made sure to re strap it every night so that the days jarring pace and jumps and things would be as mitigated as possible. There were signs of infection, running red lines up and down both arms but Kerrass told me that he was fine and that his Witcher body was fighting it off. He was certainly cool to the touch and showed no other signs of infection from the breaks.

But he was slowly losing his mind. I can't blame him either.

Why?

If you have a friend or a spouse that you trust, the trust in this game is important, then get them to tie your arms to the front of your torso so that you can't move them at all. It's important that you do this while you are fully dressed. Now, try going to take a piss. I can only answer for doing this if you're a male. You need to undo your trews, adjust your clothing until you can take yourself out, aim so that you don't splash yourself, give yourself a little shake in order to get rid of any leftovers before putting yourself back in and redoing up your trews.

And that's just for a relatively simple process. Try to feed yourself, or clean yourself or dress yourself or any of the other various things that you have to do over the course of the day.

All of these things, I had to do with Kerrass.

For as long as we've known each other, Kerrass has been the dominant force in our friendship. He has been the leader except in certain circumstances, most notably when we were in some kind of courtly place and had to be diplomatic at people. He would tell me where to sleep, what to eat and what to do. And in what order.

I never resented this because, in very real terms, he was teaching me how to survive in the real world. When he had surrendered control to me he had done so because it was necessary and, more importantly, he had surrendered control of his own accord and at his own behest. He made the decision to ask me what to do. He made the choice tl let me make the plans.

But now he was utterly dependent on me and he hated it.

It wasn't just the day to day things as well. As it turns out, Kerrass is a very un-trusting man when it comes to elements of his own personal safety. He was constantly telling me to check the back-trail and reminding me to get some training in. When I did manage to get the energy to get some practice in he would sit and criticise my technique. He was hating the forced inactivity.

He hated feeling so helpless.

He hated being so dependent on another person as well as the humiliating procedures of having another man wipe your arse after taking a shit.

Something else I had to do.

For my part, I was exhausted. Not only was I doing all of my own camp chores, I was also doing all of Kerrass' as well. I was still struggling with the after effects of blood loss and the increase in my levels of exertion were huge. Manhandling Kerrass all the time as well as the physical care of the man. So at first, I did my best to be understanding and calm but more and more I found my own temper snapping back at him. More and more we were sniping at each other and making each other feel awful.

And still we climbed. Still we struggled on. As I say, I have no doubt that both of us decided to quit at various stages but, for whatever reason, it didn't happen to us both at the same time and we carried on regardless.

On the second day, Kerrass started pointing out flowers that he wanted me to pick. Mushrooms that he wanted harvesting as well as other plants that he wanted me to uproot before carefully folding up in a piece of cloth and placing in out packs. On more than one occasion he would tell me to take out a sliver of this fungus and to feed it to him before he would chew it slowly before making a face and spitting it out.

Exhausted as I was, I couldn't tell why he was doing this and didn't have the brain power to figure it out. I was fully focused on preserving our back trail. Digging the holes with my dagger so that we could bury our....for want of a better term....leavings. Finding fresh water and picking berries for us to eat.

It was an awful time.

Kerrass, in his words, was useful for one thing though. It was he that finally spotted our enemies while they were pursuing us. They were some distance away and some distance down from where we were. Two of them on horseback. They were walking their horses along a thin deer track some distance further down. They were looking further up but Kerrass was pretty sure that he had them before they had seen us and we hid in a hollow as we watched them, leaning off their saddles and staring at the ground.

I had an overwhelming urge to jump up and down, to wave my arms in the air and to scream at them. Not to attract their attention, not really. It was the same kind of urge that you get sometimes when you're walking along a bridge and you suddenly get the urge to jump over the railing.

But we watched, carefully not moving as they looked around, heads bent together as they talked although we couldn't hear them.

As I watched I felt, rather than saw, Kerrass begin to smile. At first I was surprised but then I began to feel my own mirth at the whole ridiculous situation begin to bubble up itself. I covered my mouth to keep the noises of my own hilarity from bubbling out.

We started talking to each other, putting words in the two hooded men's mouths as we watched them, trying to imagine what they were saying. Making silly voices and making them sound stupid.

I remember one imagined part of that conversation. It went on for a good half an hour because we were waiting to move until we were certain that they were well out of the way and that we wouldn't attract any attention as we moved.

“Why don't we get out off our horses and take a proper look at the ground?” I had decided that my one of the two men had a high, whiny voice.

“Because being on these horses makes us feel like men.” Kerrass intoned with a deep, faux-masculine voice. “We don't want to be like one of those prissy little peasants on foot do we now?”

“But then we'll be closer to the ground and we'll be able to actually see whether or not they've passed this way.” I responded in my high nasally voice.

“Yes, but we look ridiculous on foot. You get down if you want, but I'm staying up here so that I can see further and look really tall.”

“But you're the better tracker.”

“But I look better on a horse.”

“But you're supposed to be showing me how to track.”

“And I am, from up here. On my horse.”

Sure enough, the two men below us seemed to be having an argument and one of them, “my” rider dismounted. “Fine,” I said. “I'll have a look.”

“You do that. I'm going to stay up here and feel important.”

“I don't know what to look for though.” I admonished.

“You'll know it when you see it.” The one on foot walked up and down the tree line examining the ground. I don't know what he saw as we had gone nowhere near that particular patch of ground.

“There's nothing here.” I said as the man straightened up.

“There must be,” Kerrass said as the one still on his horse waved his arm. “You're just not looking hard enough.”

The other man seemed to get angry and waved his arm. “I'm looking pretty hard.” I protested in his voice. “How does one actually look harder? Do I get closer to the ground?”

As if to go with my words, the man on foot bent closer to the ground.

The two of us sat in silence for a while and watched as the two hounds bickered a bit before the one got back on his horse and they rode away.

“Well, it's official.” Kerrass commented. “That's why they only come out in mist.”

“Why's that?” I knew the answer but sensed that Kerrass wanted to deliver the punchline.

“Because they look absolutely ridiculous in daylight.”

They did to be fair. It was a standard thing, we both knew it but somehow we both just needed to say that to each other in that time and a place.

We left it a good amount of time before we got up to move on. The air somewhat lightened due to the joint hilarity but it was a short respite. Part of me was left wondering whether people were arguing over the chaotic nature of the back trail. For a while, we made each other giggle with images of people looking at our tracks and trying to work out what we were doing or where we were going before agreeing that they were far too stupid to actually figure it out. We imagined the head-games that they were playing with each other as they tried to figure out what was going through our minds as we made the choices about the various footpaths that we were using.

It kept us amused for another hour.

But then Kerrass needed another toilet break which stopped our rising mood dead.

But seeing our first sight of the enemy kicked our plan into the next stage. Now it was a bit more about speed as it was only a matter of time before we were seen or that we were put into a position where we would have to kill one or two of them.

We had made our way up to the mountain paths and were heading South along, and just below the ridge line to do our best to stay out of sight. We knew that we would be spotted and attacked at some point so the plan was not dependent on not being seen or detected but more about what to do after that had happened. Indeed, my plan was rather dependant on us being found eventually. If we weren't spotted and managed to make our entire way down to Sam without seeing, or being seen by the enemy then obviously, that would be amazing. But that was going to be all but impossible, so why pin hopes on that.

Instead we did something else. We started picking up the pace a bit. To try and get as far as we could before we were actually seen and draw a couple of people into an ambush.

In the same way that the hunter needs to put himself into the shoes of the thing being hunted, so too does the hunted need to put himself into the boots of the hunter.

I thought about the vision of the fox that Jack gave me. I thanked the fox, and indeed I thanked Jack for the lesson.

I had known huntsmen all my life. From Father down to his peers who were friends, not with him or the family, but friends of his money and I thought that I had a good idea how this particular hunt would operate. They knew where we would want to go. They would have found the trail that we left heading North and would have divided their beaters into three parties.

I was thinking in hunting terms. A beater is the guy that goes into the forest before hand with a large stick and a trumpet in order to “beat” at bushes and sound his horn. This flushes the “game” out of the undergrowth so that the important people can hunt it down. Hence the term “beater”.

The first party would head North following the tracks. The other party would have headed South in all but the opposite direction. They would have fanned out, assuming that the northern trail was a false trail and that we had laid it in the opposite direction from where we had actually gone. So they would have been looking for any sign of our passage.

In the more pessimistic part of my brain, it was this part of the hunt that we had seen on the tree line. Ideally I had wanted the hunt to have moved onto the next stage.

The third group would have been the people that would have been sent to the choke points. They would be the people watching the roads, watching the castles of friendly lords and watching those passes in the hills or woods that we would need to pass through in order to get to Sam. This group would have stayed in place until they were recalled. I imagine that they would occasionally receive orders to check the grounds to make sure we hadn't passed that way. Even if all they found was our tracks travelling through one of these choke points then that was a victory for them because they would then be able to build the rest of their search off this information.

So those were the three groups. Group 1, the chasers. Group 2, the searchers and Group 3, the Watchers.

To my mind. Group 1 was the dangerous one. They were the group that would be travelling in numbers in an effort to overwhelm us. It would be this group that would have who I thought of as the VIPs amongst them. People like Cavill and his son.

We did have one thing going for us there. Or rather, I was working really hard on thinking that it was an advantage. That being that Kerrass' injuries meant that we had to make lots of unintentional false trails. Paths that we had followed, hoping that there would be a way through before finding that there was indeed a way through but that Kerrass wouldn't make it. Group 1 would have to check each and every one of these small tracks to find out whether we had actually used the path.

Which of course we hadn't. I hoped that this was beginning to play on people's mind.

Group 2 would have spread out. Looking for any sign that we had passed that way. Although Group 1 was the most dangerous group. I expected Group 2 to be the more numerous group. They would be combing the countryside looking for us. Each pair or trio of hunters with a signal horn that they would wind if they had any sight of us. Which meant that if we did come across any then we would have to kill the horn bearer first.

That I would have to kill the horn-bearer first.

From there, one of two things was going to happen. The possibility that we might cross the paths with any of Group 3 didn't even cross my mind. We were moving far too slowly.

The first was that someone from Group 2 would cross our paths and we would have to kill them. The second option was that there would be some kind of signal and the hunters would regroup in order to rethink their strategy. They would do that if neither Groups one or two would find enough sign of us to satisfy themselves. This was my optimistic hope. That what we had seen would be the results of this change in strategy.

I didn't even think about what would happen if Group 1 caught up with us. The answer to that would be simple. We would sell ourselves as dearly as we could while also making sure that they didn't take us alive. I had no desire to spend the last hours of my life being tortured to death for Lord Cavill's amusement.

I don't know which would happen but, some day soon I would have to kill someone, probably several someones.

We kept going though. Stumbling along paths and gullies. Scrambling down scree slopes as we jogged along. Without discussing it we had chosen to pick up the pace. We risked exhaustion but sooner or later we would have to go to ground in an effort to let the net pass over us.

It was at some point here that we ran out of the food that Cavill had given us. We had already rationed it as best we could, living off wild berries and things but now we had got to this point. We buried the bags carefully.

We saw another pair of men two days later. They were riding somewhere at the end of the day as we crouched in the shadowed hollow of a boulder. They weren't looking or examining the ground and we guessed that they were on their way to report to someone.

The day after that we saw another horseman sat on his horse at the bottom of a slope looking up at the mountains. We were safe from him but I was lying flat on the edge of the ridge peering at him. Kerrass was chewing a stick or something, not being able to lie on his front with his arms being the way they were. He was whispering questions up to me that I couldn't then answer. That particular horseman sat his horse, staring at the slope for an hour before turning and riding north slowly. He kept looking over his shoulder with an air of dissatisfaction about something.

“They know which route we took.” Was Kerrass' verdict. “Not where we are but they know what this part of our strategy is.”

I nodded. “How are you doing?” I asked him.

“Why do you keep asking me that?” He said the same thing every time I asked. There was no anger in him any more but he kept asking that question in the same tone of voice, even if he knew what my answer was going to be.”

“Because I'm checking on my patient.” I told him. “You're pale, sweating and you have huge black rings under your eyes.”

“You should see your own reflection.” He told me. “Exhaustion, that's all.”

We jogged on for another couple of hours before it went dark.

The hunters seemed to be reluctant to dismount from their horses. Sir Rickard would have said that this is the mark of cavalry. They know, or rather feel, that the presence of their horses gives them a certain amount of status. It gives them a better vantage point, a way of seeing over the heads of the common soldier and as a result it leads to a certain arrogance in the horseman.

This and, according to Sir Rickard, the average cavalryman or knight has less brains than his horse.

On a more practical level, I know that Cavalry and armoured boots are made so that they are better suited to stirrups and the saddle. Kerrass and Sir William the Ram demonstrated this fact most eloquently all that time ago.

Flame but it seems a long time ago now that we stood there with Annie the troll, looking after her sick child before Kerrass dealt with a monster.

But Horsemen will resist the urge to get out of their saddles at all cost. This is not always a good thing and was another reason why we had headed into the hills.

The following day we had to cross a slope covered in small loose pebbles, carried there from the melting snows up amongst the peaks in the new summer sun. Kerrass was going to struggle but it was either that or backtrack for a good chunk of a day and neither of us wanted to do that. All things being equal we actually did quite well, without losing too much height from our line of march. We found our path and continued for a little way before Kerrass, still walking in front turned to look back and gestured that I flatten myself against the slope.

Back where we had begun our slipping and sliding trail across the scree, there was a single horseman. Hooded and cloaked looking at the slope. We couldn't tell whether or not he could see us or what he was thinking but his very presence was eloquent.

Neither of us said anything. Instead we just shouldered our burdens and carried on.

“Soon,” was Kerrass' assessment. I just grunted my agreement, saving what little of my strength I had left.

We saw more and more of them the following day. It also seemed that some of them had finally swallowed their pride and had dismounted from their horses as they were searching the countryside more and more in pairs, trios and odd individuals passing messages the one to another.

It got to the point that Kerrass and I stopped pointing them out to each other.

In the end. We nearly ran into them. We almost came round the corner to a small ledge where two men were standing their horses and surveying the area. They had their hoods down, shading their eyes against the afternoon glare and talking to each other. I didn't really listen enough to their conversation to see what they were talking about. That might have been more sensible if I could have listened and learned a bit about what was going on with them all but I felt as though we didn't have time. I was tired, sick from the reduced and limited diet and I felt as weak as a kitten.

Why that's a saying, I'll never know. Kitten's may be weak but in my experience they're also made out of Razor blades.

I had my spear I suppose.

Kerrass waved me forward and I took the covering from the blade of my spear.

They were standing on the edge of a ridge with their backs to me and it still astonishes me that they didn't hear us approach as we were certainly taken by surprise by them. I moved past Kerrass, chose my target as the base of the man on the right's spine and stepped forward with the most basic of lunges that Kerrass had trained in me. Short, sharp and powerful.

He gave a kind of grunt and fell backwards, trapping the spear in his body. The other stared at his fallen comrade before looking at me dawning shock in his eyes.

But I was on him then. I didn't feel as though I had room to move my spear properly even if it hadn't been trapped in my first victims body, so I had already dropped it before drawing my dagger, stepping close and clapped my hand over his mouth so that he couldn't scream. I stabbed him three times. I would have done a fourth but the light in his eyes had gone out.

The first man was still alive, eyes wide and mouth gaping like a beached fish. I put him out of his misery by cutting his throat. Nice and deep.

I often think about those two deaths up in the hills amongst the rocks. Not with guilt. I killed them relatively quickly which was considerably better than what they had in mind for me. But rather about my method. We could have questioned them, we could have asked them things and gained information. But stealth was in my mind and if I had left them with voices to speak then I worried that they could have draw attention down on us.

As it was. Kerrass and I had our first disagreement about whether or not we should take the horses.

Not that it was a bad conversation to have but....

Kerrass wanted to use the horses to put some distance between us and the enemy. I wanted to use them as a distraction.

For the record. I can see his point. The desire to put some distance between us and our enemy was strong and were Kerrass able to swing his swords then that is undoubtedly the course of action that we would have taken. The strategy being that if we fled, then our pursuers would stretch out in a line behind us. Then, at a time of our choosing, we would be able to turn around and bloody the noses of the people chasing us which would mean that our pursuers would be reluctant to take the lead and be the ones closest to us. The chase would falter, enabling us to get further and further away.

It has worked for Kerrass before and he was confident that it would work again.

I, however, am no Kerrass and although I am forced to admit that my skills with a spear are better than that of the average person, I maintain that I would not be able to take on more than one or two people at a time and I strongly suspected that the Hounds would come at us in a group. I was also tired and weak and just didn't believe that it would work out.

I also argued that if we fled on horseback, we would leave tracks. There is no escaping the fact that all that horseflesh has weight and metal horseshoes leave marks when they travel over the land. If we used the horses, our enemies would be drawn to us like flies on shit rather than to what we wanted them to be drawn to which was their two missing men. In the end, I put my foot down and as Kerrass was in no shape to do anything about the bodies and would have needed my help to get into the saddle of whichever horse turned out to be his.

Instead, we searched the bodies and the saddles of the two men for anything useful which turned up some trail rations and some strong alcohol which made Kerrass' eyes gleam when he saw it. For myself I had to really strain not to eat the apples and lumps of cheese on the spot on the ground that it would make me sick, but, withered and wrinkled though they were, they looked so delicious. I then tied the two men across their saddles and slapped the horses hard in the back. I also kicked some loose stones and dirt over the blood stains in an effort to hide the scene of the fight.

It wasn't perfect and they would figure it out eventually but everything that we could do to muddy the waters or to sew confusion into the enemies ranks was a good thing to do.

Because here was my strategy. Kerrass and I were weak, frighteningly so. Kerrass' eyes were sunken in his face, his cheeks were sallow and his eyes bright. Small points of what looked like fever danced in his cheeks and perspiration constantly beaded on his head. I had no reason to suspect that I was doing any better. I had a nigh constant headache and my stomach was roiling with acid and my limbs ached. The more so after the exertions of the violence and moving the bodies.

So I knew that we weren't in good shape. I also knew that it takes a strong hunt-master to keep his men from dashing towards where the most recent sign of the quarry has been seen. That sign being the two dead men. If we were lucky, which was not a thing that I was counting on, the two men would first be missed when they failed to report in. If we were unlucky, that meant that they would be spotted before that, or someone would see the trail of blood that was still dripping from their injuries from the back of the corpse. The men would be tracked back to the point of contact and the scene of the fight would be found. From there, they would assume that we would think that the game was up and had run for it. As fast as we could in a straightish line towards safety, ie south.

So we doubled back on our trail and headed back north, the plan being that we would turn west and hope to come round the back of the main body of hunters. If we pulled that off then I would be able to have a think about what to do next.

It is sometimes a mistake to try and think too far ahead.

But for now, we needed to get undercover. They knew that we were using the mountain and hill paths so now we had to go to the thick woodland paths. For the rest of that day, we went painfully slowly. Darting from cover to cover, not moving until we were sure that there was no-one in sight. A matters after the fight we found what we were looking for. A small, woodland hollow. Formed underneath a thicket of gorse. We had to use my spear as a lever to get underneath it and we couldn't do much more than lie flat but that would have to do while we waited for darkness, burying ourselves under a blanket of leaves for camouflage.

There were things that we needed to do.

I slept a little and woke to the sound of a horn being sounded. I woke with a start and nearly impaled my face on some thorns.

“They found them.” Kerrass whispered. “That was quick. I was sure that they would have until nightfall or even tomorrow before they would be found.”

I said nothing.

“I was also certain that we would be found before they were with this damn fool plan but....Gotta hand it to you.” He shook his head. “Get some more rest Freddie, I'll wake you when it starts getting dark.”

I still said nothing and did as I was told.

That night we built a fire. Just a small one but there were two reasons for this. The first was that Kerrass wanted to try brewing a potion. It wasn't that scientific.

We left our refuge, still in the dip but even despite that, we dug a hole for the fire. Painfully small though it was.

We heated the alcohol that we had found in the dead men's belongings in a bowl that Kerrass directed me to make from the bark of one of the trees before adding the various bits of leaves and fungus that we had found. It took a long time before, abruptly, Kerrass shrugged and had me tip the lot into his mouth.

I'm not sure how He did it, but he managed to keep it down. It looked far from appetizing to me.

But the other thing that we needed to do was to clean ourselves up a bit. We stank. The need for stealth over the next few days was paramount, over and above what we had been doing so far. We could camouflage ourselves with leaves, twigs and dirt. We could bury our faeces and urinate into holes that we could kick earth over. But you will be surprised how far the scent of unwashed human can travel over the countryside.

We also treated ourselves to a bit of beef jerky each before, for the first time in our flight, I let Kerrass lead me by night.

I had never wanted to travel by night when we had been travelling through the mountains. Not because I didn't trust Kerrass' eyes but rather because I didn't trust my feet. But now that we were travelling through paths and trees, I felt that it was a lot easier to do so. The moon was waning and we both agreed that the Hounds wouldn't hunt by day.

We still moved slowly, Kerrass in front, carefully placing our feet to minimise tracks and leavings in an effort to keep ourselves from being followed.

But for the first time, it felt as though we were stealing a march on our enemies.

We pushed ourselves hard that night. We had been travelling for most of the day, there had been violence and we, I mean I, had only had a couple of hours sleep under the bush. We stopped just as the sky above the mountains was beginning to turn into a brighter shade of blue. Not red or orange yet, just a slightly lighter shade. So that we could see better by it rather than seeing by the light of the moon. Kerrass led us to a small camp site and we burrowed in for the day.

Not that we were short of camp sites. Now that we were heading into the lower lands we were surrounded by old and abandoned huts. Grain stores which were mostly empty. Shepherd shelters, abandoned cottages, store sheds and Flame only knows what else but....as Kerrass said and I agreed....The first place that the Hunters would look. Even if they didn't and we were stumbled upon by a farmer or one of the shepherds whose flocks we were walking amongst. They would almost certainly talk to the Hunters about us. It was one of the reasons that we were now travelling during those hours of darkness.

It was all about changing our habits. Attempting to become less....predictable.

But as I say, we lay down for the night. We were still quite far away from those areas of the countryside that were more heavily travelled because there was still lots of detritus on the forest floor. Fine by us. It gave us a blanket to sleep under.

But I remember that first period of sleep, half watching the dawn through the branches and leaves of the trees, half falling asleep while all of me was trying to forget about the predicament that we were in. I remember it because that was when Kerrass started to lose his mind.

“I can't do this Freddie,” he said in a small voice. Just a small voice, the tiniest of voices, so small and quiet that I kind of assumed that it wasn't Kerrass at all. The same kind of voice that kittens use to let you know that they are hungry.

“I can't do this.” he said again.

“Kerrass?”

“It's just all too much. I can't do this. I can't keep going.”

We were lying together under another bush having burrowed in to the undergrowth. We weren't lying together to share body heat or anything. The weather was quite pleasant all things considered. I looked over at him to see that he was lying flat on his back. Eyes open and staring up at the sky. The slits of the pupils of his eye were so narrow that they were a simple black line.

I reached over and shook him but he didn't react. I watched as a fly landed on his face and crawled across his open eyeball.

“Kerrass?” I called a little louder and kicked him. Yes I was making nose but at the same time, so was he and if he kept talking like that then we ran a real risk of being discovered.

He blinked, the fly flew away.

“What?” He whispered fiercely and angrily. “Why did you wake me up?”

“You were talking in your sleep.” I told him.

He took the news fairly well all considering.

“Fuck sticks,” he said.

“I know that this is a stupid question.” I told him quietly, “But are you Ok?”

“You're right, it is a stupid question.” He lay back with a groan. “I'll be alright Freddie. Just need to get somewhere proper so that I can get some proper Elixirs in me and get myself back on the mend.”

I accepted his explanation. What else could I do?

He slept. It took him a while and there were several groans and bouts of muttering. Words that I didn't understand. That I couldn't follow.

He was whimpering.

The rest of the morning became an agony of listening. The noises that he was making were only quiet ones but at the same time, it wouldn't take much to attract someone. Even if the person that we attracted was genuine and friendly then it wouldn't be long before it attracted someone more dangerous.

I was used to Kerrass snoring. This was different and infinitely more dangerous.

When I wasn't listening for the noises that Kerrass made, I was listening for sounds of pursuit. The rhythm of horses hooves against the ground. The sounds of jangling horse reigns and the sounds of men. Kerrass stopped and sank into a deeper sleep at what I would guess to be around mid morning but that was not better. I darted at every noise. If his sleep pattern changed to mean that now he would be heading into a round of thrashing about. Or if the whimpering started up again and got worse.

It was a long time before I got to sleep and I woke up far too late, groggy and irritable.

Kerrass was already up because of course he was. He was sat, cross legged and staring into space. Kerrass' face is unreadable at the best of times. I know him and can read him as well as anyone but this time his face was like a mask.

“Kerrass?” I prompted.

He didn't move. It wasn't until I moved and put my hand on his shoulder that he reacted moving and spinning.

I had made this mistake before. Early on in our travelling together, of waking him up before he was ready and fell on my backside to find a knife to my throat. At the time I remembered thinking that Kerrass was paying some kind of prank on me in order to remind of who was in charge but I now know better. I scrambled backwards and I honestly believe that things might have gone badly for me if Kerrass' arms had been working.

“Kerrass?” I prompted again, scurrying backwards.

He blinked and then he was himself again. Not the automata whose shoulder I had touched.

“Sorry Freddie,” he said shaking himself. I was trying to meditate, trying to help that potion that we made and to help with the healing.”

“Did it work?” I asked, pulling myself to my feet.

He shook his head. “I...uh......I'm really struggling with this Freddie.”

“Struggling with what.”

“With this.” He shrugged to indicate his injury. It would seem that the pain was getting more bearable as he didn't wince after doing so. “I'm too used to being in control of things. To be able to get at my weapons to be self-sufficient. Even when you were telling me what to do before, I knew that if things went really badly I could cut my way free.”

“That's reassuring,” I was trying to lighten the mood a little.

“Don't be glib,” he snapped. “But now, I'm completely dependent on you. Completely and I don't like it. I hate it and......and it frightens me.”

He couldn't look me in the eye when he said this.

“Even being injured before,” he went on, “I could still use one arm and I can still fight with my off hand. Even as badly injured as I've been before.”

“I know,” I tried for reassuring.

“How can you know?” he spat, his eyes suddenly blazing. He regretted the anger instantly though. “I suppose that in every other case where I've been seriously injured, I've had potions to help me and I've been safe.”

I sat next to him for a moment. Even though my instincts were screaming at me to get us moving. To get us on our way.

“It may surprise you to learn,” Kerrass joked after a while, “that I am a very bad patient.”

“No,” my sarcasm was boundless. “Really? I would never have guessed. Fuck me sideways with a fork.” I finally managed to get the smile that I was looking for. “Although, I think that this is the first time that you've been seriously injured since the day I met you. Cuts and some bruised ribs, but this is the first time it's serious.”

Kerrass considered this. “Possibly. But that, plus the lack of agency in me and the lack of safety, security.....”

“Decent food,” I carried on for him, “clean water and medicine....”

“It's sending me a bit doo-lally.” He told me.

I stared at him flatly for a while. “Do I need to be worried Kerrass?” I asked him. “I'm not sure I'm strong enough to stop you if you have a “test of Death” coming on,”

“It might be worse than that.” He told me.

“There's worse than that?”

“I.....uh.....I might.....” He stopped talking again. He was chewing his lip. I can honestly say that I've never seen him looking so emotional or confused.

“Kerrass,” I prompted when it was clear that he wasn't going to say anything else. “What's going on?”

He shook his head. “I need you to start getting yourself into a place where you can leave me behind.” he told me softly. “Don't argue with me. Just, start screwing yourself up for it. I'm not giving up yet,” he spun and stared at the sky. “Do you hear me? Bitch? I'm not giving up yet.” He hissed at the stars.

But then he shook himself.

“But. I need you to start getting into that mindset.”

“Fuck that Kerrass. What's going on?”

But Kerrass shook his head and would say no more.

“Damn you Kerrass.” I snarled.

But he was already walking off between the trees and refused to speak to me, ignoring every attempt to talk to him. It was as though his mouth had been sewn shut. We were back to communicating with grunts and gestures.

We slept again through the day time. Plain old exhaustion meant that I fell asleep almost immediately as I lay my head down but as I woke, the following evening. I woke to find Kerrass kneeling over me. I almost didn't recognise him, his face was contorted into a mask of rage and hate such that it became ugly.

I've said it before but it bears saying again. I often exaggerate Kerrass' facial expressions as well as other signs of emotion in order to properly convey where things were and how we stand. In studying a person it's important to know what his mental state was and in order for the reader to understand this, I need to make this clear. If I tell you that the right corner of his lips twitched upwards for a second, that would mean nothing to you, but to me and to others that know him well, that is Kerrass' expression of wry amusement. A wry, quiet chuckle is Kerrass' version of a guffaw while a slight frown is the only sign you will ever see of Kerrass getting towards being angry.

Some people have argued that my exaggerating and simplifying of his expressions is doing my readers, and Kerrass, a disservice as it portrays an individual as being more than he is.

Maybe this is true, but I think it's doing Kerrass a disservice to say otherwise.

So in this case, it bears emphasising just how distorted his face was.

Instinct made my hands move so that I could prepare to leap to my feet at a moments notice.

Then he blinked again and the look of rage was replaced with horror and revulsion. The hate turned inwards and he moved away.

For the first time, in a long time, I was afraid of my travelling companion.

Again we moved through the countryside in silence that day. Kerrass leading, his Witcher eyes leading us through the darkness as we didn't dare light a torch.

At one point Kerrass leaned against a tree and started to shake. If I didn't know better I would say that he was weeping. I was still a little too mindful of the expression that I'd seen on his face when I woke up to get close though but after a minute, maybe two, he shook himself. I heard him growl something to himself although I didn't catch the words before he moved off again.

That night he couldn't eat his share of the rations.

Again, that might not sound like much as you read it. I've seen Kerrass eat raw mushrooms which I know are poisonous. They're the kind of mushrooms that your parents take you into the woods near your home and say, “don't eat that or those because they will kill you.” He has also dipped his finger into monster slime and blood before licking his finger and declaring how long the stuff has been there. He once boasted that he had eaten gruel made from rotten meat and had been forced by hunger into eating insects that were still alive enough to skitter and slither down his throat.

Although that was near the beginning of our travelling together and he may just have been trying to intimidate me

But regardless, he is the one that has, in the past, forced me to eat food because I needed my strength. Instead, without speaking he lay down, drank some water although not nearly enough to my eyes before going to sleep. Some time after that, he started to shake.

It was that day that the searching net passed over us. I don't know if that meant that they were desperately incompetent and that it was only now, all this time later, that they had managed to find the dead men, or it was only at that point that the men that went past us managed to receive the necessary message. There were several groups of them though, riding at a relatively quick pace.

Kerrass started whimpering as they did. Not loud, but loud enough to make me nervous. He was getting louder too until I was forced to take steps. Edging closer to him, I first tried to shake him in order to wake him up.

He remained asleep. This never happens.

So then I tried putting my hand over his mouth. He struggled a bit before he subsided. The noises more muffled. It went on and on and on as the riders got closer and closer and closer. It got so that I could hear them talking, could hear the thud of the earth as their horses put their foot down. Then I could see them, the shaggy hair of their mounts as they passed by our hiding place. A snippet of conversation, often about what they planned to do to us after they caught us and on one occasion, a description of just how angry someone was that we hadn't been caught yet.

Or scared, I didn't really catch that bit.

But then they would be passed us and I would slump bat into an exhausted but watchful silence. Kerrass' whimpering continuing unabated. Until the next time the horses could be heard, hooves hammering away on the earth. Sometimes close enough to reach out and touch. Other times far enough away that I only heard them as an echo in the ground.

I don't know how often this happened but by the end of it. I could feel my own sanity threatening to leave through my ears.

At some point I fell into a restless sleep.

This time it was Kerrass who woke me up with forced cheerfulness and a smile filled with gritted teeth. He said nothing but I could smell vomit. He gestured and I followed him.

We were still heading south. Slightly truer south than the south west that we needed to go but I would take what I could get. The shape of the mountains off to our left were beginning to take on a more familiar edge despite our crawling pace. We moved a little faster after that, still taking care but we were doing a bit more. We also switched back to travelling by day.

But Kerrass was getting worse.

At the time, I remember thinking that it was Elixir withdrawal but this was worse than I could imagine. As I've mentioned before, I've had the dubious pleasure of helping someone through Fisstech withdrawal before and I've heard that Alcohol withdrawal can be similar. But Kerrass was approaching incoherence. Then, abruptly he would stop. Look around and blink as though I could see my friend in his eyes again rather than the tired and frantic man that I had been dealing with.

Two days after the net had passed over us, he started to shiver, staggering as he walked and weaving in place. I was still a little too nervous to outright support him as he went. Instead, I watched him carefully as he mumbled incoherently to people and things that I couldn't see. He seemed to be particularly angry at some unseen woman. Negative epithets were snarled into the quiet hollows between the trees and under bushes and those were the words that I could recognise. He would spit and hiss like a cat before insisting in a rage filled voice that “She” had betrayed him. That he was still fighting, still struggling. I could make nothing of it though.

Then one day, his strength fled from him. His legs buckled and he collapsed to the ground. Maybe I should have left him. That might have been the sensible thing to do but I couldn't force myself into that mindset. Even though Kerrass would have insisted, had he been able. I hauled him to his feet and had to all but carry him. His legs still worked and after a while he could move under his own effort. He had gone back to whimpering though.

The hardest part of any kind of evasion was still to come. That part of things when we had to get through the blockades that Lord Cavill would have set up in our way. The groups that would have set off. As soon as the hunt started they would have gone off to watch the passes and the roads. That was going to be the hard part. The unavoidable part. I told myself over and over that I would abandon Kerrass then if I had to.

It was the part I was dreading. It also wouldn't be long before the hunters would be sent out from their place to spread out across the countryside again. We would have to hope that we were far enough out that they would come back at us in one's and twos but it was unlikely that the same trick would work again.

We were still walking through forestry at this point. Skirting round farms and large fields and clearing where, should we be caught, then we would be in the open without cover and no real way to defend ourselves. Without speaking for Kerrass, my mind had become a sharp thing that all other things bounced off. A constant headache that I could no longer dismiss and a buzzing sound that seemed to come from everywhere at the same time that stole all thought from me other than to place one foot in front of the other. Only the fear was constant. The fear that I had made the wrong choices, that we should have run for it with all speed south. That we were going to die out here from starvation and God knows what else. That we should have taken the horses and above all, that I shouldn't have agreed to help Sam with his issues at all. That I should have married Ariadne and retired when I had the chance.

Habitually, the tears would come then. The tears and the recriminations, followed by the anger. The rage at Cavill and his son. The rage at the now, long dead Cousin Kalayn and his parents. Rage at my mother and the Holy Fire and Rage at the world for making this my problem.

Which led into the self-pity. I won't bore you with this one.

But all told, I didn't see the elf until I walked into her. I looked up into the startling beauty of the woman, shining blue eyes in dark hair although a nagging thought told me that she could do with a good meal and a wash. She had a bow and an arrow pointed at me with her lips twisted into a sneer of distaste. She was dressed in a tunic and trousers that looked as though it was made from deer-hide and sack, cloth. A belt of rope completed the ensemble.

For some reason known only to my own brain, it seemed important for me to realise that she was bare foot.

“Peidiwch â symud, d'hoine Filth,” She snarled. Telling me not to move before calling me names.

My brain shut down and threw a tantrum.

“Oh for Fuck's sake.” I said, throwing my arms in the air and sitting down in exactly the same way that a toddler does when they're tired, angry and have had enough. “What the fuck else?”

Kerrass collapsed after me, legs folding under him before he toppled gently sideways into me. “I told you,” he muttered although it seemed to cost him a lot of effort. “Never say that “Things could hardly get any worse.”.”